403 LBS!!! (older news but still remarkable)

We have caught Warsaw grouper before from the 25-40 lbs range. I think I even blogged that they were pretty small, relatively speaking. Well, here's why I called ours small. Here's a big one caught by a spear fisherman. WOW!! I'll let him tell it in his own words. (And to think that Goliath- Jew fish can be double this size!)

Happy Fishing - Robin

Story from Dan McMahon "Head Hunter" on http://www.spearboard.com/. "Do I shoot or do I run?" Pg 9. 6/21/05. You may want to skip the first 8 pages of colorful remarks if you follow the link. That is why I cut/paste for you.

Heres the story on the big warsaw first. Last year, SpearTen, Steve Simkins and I did a dive in 415' on a pinnacle in the 72 Fathom Peaks area. The mission was to finally get the big Warsaw I've wanted all my life. The dive basically sucked, 4 feet of viz and darker than midnight.I spent the last year plotting and planning. New and better equipment, lots of designing and testing of everything. Finally got it all done, planned the trip out and we loaded down HeadHunter with 60 tanks, 10 stage bottles, 4 O2 bottles, 400 gallons of diesel, 3000 lbs of ice and about 5 million pounds of misc equipment. Hell, Kmoose's food and drinks weighed 100 LBS!Along on the trip were myself, Spearten, SimplyScuba, Jazzien, BucketOne and the Moose. We left port Wednesday evening and SpearTen and I did the 425' dive around 11:00 Friday morning. It was a neap tide and I prayed for fish, viz and low current. We got to the wreck, a huge freighter that stood 50 feet high in 425 feet. It had a great fish show on it and we all just kinda stared at the color screen. Kevin Bruington had made me one of his custom buoys (thanks Kev) and we pitched it to the wreck with 32 Lbs of lead. Direct hit! Great! SpearTen and I geared up, 5 tanks, 5 regs and all the other tech gear the dive required. We rolled and began the 3 minute descent. On a deep ocean dive like this, you never know what water conditions are until you descend as they can change every few feet. Perfect conditions!!! Perfect! The wreck came into view around 250 feet and we touched down at 375' on the deck. With no BS, I've never dove in any clearer water anywhere at anytime. You could see 150 feet plus in any direction and it was light and blue, no lights needed.There were a half dozen Warsaws in the 40-100 Lb range close to us when I spotted the monster facing me about 100 feet away. I got my bouyancy trimmed out and he came charging down the wreck towards me. Time began to slow down as many years of effort and dreams all came down to a few seconds. He went into an aggressive mode, changed colors and threw up his dorsal fin. Awesome. Just frigging awesome.I had made a couple of barbless shafts up, sharpened to a 2 inch long needle point. I pointed my 52 inch SS Hornet and slammed a free shaft into the sweet spot. OMG, I almost rolled him. He started shaking back and forth and I slammed shaft number two into his head. I swam over and grabbed him and was thinking OK now WTF. We crashed into the wreck at 397' and I had my hands full. He was still moving around a little and I decided that I didn't want my 46 year old ass tied to this fish at this depth. I put a PH on my kill spike and slammed into his head. I'm not sure now whether it was neccessary or not, but at the time it seemed like the prudent thing to do.

I had been planning on lift bagging him up, but decided to pump air into his mouth and swim him up a few feet. 20 feet up and 10 seconds of pumped air later, he took off and I watched him blast towards the surface. Awesome.I turned and watched SpearTen slam a spear into a 73 Lb Warsaws head and stone it. Great shot! We were a minute under our planned bottom time and decided to head on up. We met Jazzien(our first support diver) at 170 feet and I said "Did you get him?" and he answered that he had watched it blast by him and it should be on the surface. Bucket came free diving down to a hundred feet (thats insane) and wrote out 400 LBS on my slate. We finished up our lenghtly deco as we watched large Wahoo swimming around us in the 84 degree water. Unreal.It took all four of the guys and a block and tackle to get the fish on the boat. We took some pics and headed toward some shallower water. Awesome. What an awesome dive. Theres just too few moments like this in ones life.

I'd like to thank all the guys for their support and efforts to make this happen. A special thanks to Zeagle and Spearfishing Specialities for making the gear that made this possible.A final and very special thanks to my brother-in-law SpearTen, for all his help and work towards making this happen. It takes a lot of guts to roll off a perfectly good boat in 425' with 200 Lbs of steel strapped to your back. I owe you bro.

SANTA APPROVED!!!
by Robin

Well, actually, God & the banks approved. East Coast Trailers (here) is building us a trailer to meet our boat specs and we'll get to pick it up next Monday in St. Petersburg. This picture below is essentially what we're getting.



We are very excited about the prospects of trailering the boat around Florida to new locations. It is a dream that might come true to fish the Keys in our own boat.

Coincidentally, Jack found our exact same boat for sale and it happens to be sitting on the same exact trailer that we're purchasing. So, you'll get to see pretty much what we'll see live in another week.



Btw, this boat would be an excellent purchase for anyone looking to buy our exact set-up and start offshore fishing. I'm going to link you to the owner & pictures here .

There were many reasons for getting a new trailer. Our old one is 21 yrs old. It is falling apart piece by piece.



We had to remove the fenders, which in turn, the tires now send dirt & rocks up into the sides of the boat. Not good... especially after doing the makeover.

God knew that we needed all 4 wheels to have those special brakes in case of emergency braking. This will help save the transmission on our new suburban as well. I'm sure that is what hurt our former transmission, or at least contributed to its downfall.

God also knew that I was beginning to lose faith in our winch. Last time we were out fishing, I had a near-accident happen at the ramp where the boat & winch didn't work right and through a blessing of God, my arm was not in the way of a free-flowing winch crank that could have broke my hand or arm. And as if by miracle of an angel, the winch locked itself at one point during the incident. I cannot explain it away so I won't even try. It's just a miracle how it all happened. I'm happy to be having new equipment.

Last, but not least, we were blessed with a dealer price because fishermen help out one another, especially when they have to move inventory. Thank you Steve, "FishOn", for your fantastic offer. (If you ever happen to see this blog.)

The seas are still high so you'll have to suffer through trailer instead of fishing pictures this week. Now, when our seas are high, we can head south or over to the Gulf and still be able to fish.

Happy Fishing!

WIND DELAY - SEA TURTLES
by Robin

Just to let you know that seas have been building all week. By first of next week, we're looking at 6-9 ft seas!!!

In the meanwhile, I thought that I would mention an article on the deaths of Loggerhead sea turtles.

http://tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article871640.ece

Here are some clips of that article to pique your interest.

"The numbers are pretty alarming," said Tom Wheatley of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. "This is definitely an issue that will require action."Most of the grouper landed in Florida are caught by boats that lay miles of monofilament fishing line, baited with thousands of hooks, across the sea bottom. This fishing method is effective but controversial.

During the study, which lasted a year and a half, federal observers went along on 34 fishing trips and documented 18 hooked sea turtles.

About 90 percent of the world's loggerhead sea turtles nest on Florida's beaches. But in recent years, the number of documented sea turtle nests has steadily declined.


Isn't this awful??!!!

"Longlines are adding to the problem," Witherington added. "The number of loggerhead sea turtles killed in fisheries is significant enough to affect population trends, and lo and behold, we are seeing declining numbers of sea turtle nests. It is a smoking gun, and we have a dead body."

I can tell you from my own experience with fishing off the Atlantic coast that we sometimes come across dead, floating sea turtles. It is a very sombering thing to witness because we know many of these are old veterans who have survived decades, only to be killed by commercial nets or long lines. We are no fans of longlining, so we are happy to see the new findings causing some changes. FYI - Many times, longliners off the Atlantic coasts aren't even American boats. If you've ever watched Whale Wars, you'll read between the lines and figure out who's doing it. Why don't they go to their own waters and rape their side of the ocean. We're doing what we can to save our oceans and then people like this come along and kill indescriminately. It makes me mad and sick at the same time.

Getting off my soapbox.
Robin

FISHERMAN'S CHRISTMAS WISH LIST
by Robin

I'm not sure if we were naughty or nice, but Santa is checking his list. TWICE!!

It has something round on it.

It's long.

It's shiney.

We will just have to see if Santa puts it under the tree.....er the boat for Christmas or not.

RECREATIONAL FISHERMEN VS SAFMC
by Robin

I haven't had time to sit down and write this out before today but it is big news. Fishermen up & down the S,E. Atlantic coast have been doing battle over the holidays to keep the American Red Snapper fisheries open all year-round. The SAFMC (S. Atlantic Fisheries Mgmt Council, I think) had decided to propose closing Snapper fishing January 1st for 4 months, in the Atlantic ocean. If they had gotten this control, then they'd be able to close the entire fishery for 180 days. There are protected species like the Goliath and Nassau groupers but many of us feel like the Snapper stock numbers are not down. This is not necessary. We're already regulated to take only fish over 20" and only 2 per person. That's not many compared to what we throw back each trip.

We are members of a private fishing forum which asked us to please write to the SAFMC about our opinions on their proposal. Between the forum, CFOA and FSFA fishing clubs, we were able to make a big difference. Infact, we have a temporary VICTORY!!!!

The council has decided to let things lie the way they are and revisit the topic again in March. We need your comments!!

Ø What can you do? Go to http://samfc.deep-blue-sea.org/ and tell the SAFMC and your elected officials what you think. It will take less than 5 minutes.

Ø Does it really matter? Public comments regarding this closure were key to the SAFMC tabling this closure at the last meeting. If access to this fishery is important to you, then it really does matter.

Ø Is this really going to happen? Below is the text directly from the SAFMC web site, you read and decide. You can find more information on Red Snapper and the SAFMC at http://SAFMC.deep-blue-sea.org/SAFMC/snapper.htm..

The Council’s intent is to have the interim rule effective by January 1, 2009”. http://www.safmc.net/News/NewsReleases/NewsReleaseSeptember232008/tabid/582/Default.aspx.

Even though these links are older, we still need support for the upcoming March meeting.

Btw, my opinion is also that the Goliath fishery closing should be revisited. I do believe that those numbers are up again and could use some thinning out, possibily seasonally.

Please take a moment to fill out the form.
Happy Fishing!

CEDAR KEY - Part 2
by Robin

I thought that maybe now I had a minute to continue pictures from our Cedar Key trip.

Here is Jack that first night. I love the silhouette.


Day 2 (our only full day), it was very cold. We did have to burn off some boy energy though. We walked half the town and let the boys ride their scooters and play at the playground.


We ended up watching a lot of History Channel's Modern Marvels that afternoon and took naps. We did a little fishing but no fish wanted to move or eat in the cold weather. Here is the view from our window. This is the Brand Spankin' New Cedar Key Pier
.


So, we got ready to hit the Rusty Rim for dinner and get the best seat IN the building to view the sunset. Given these horrid economic times, it wasn't like there was a fight for the best table in town.


Some people chose to sit outside and watch the sunset.


After dinner, I captured this picture from the back deck. I love the star at the top. Something about it reminds me of Bethlehem & a manger.


Here is a picture of the Rusty Rim & bar below, taken from our walk back to our room. Oh, did I mention that we had to walk a full 50 ft to get from restaurant to motel? Sheesh..... how lazy can you be, right? Notice the little dolphin Christmas light on the post? Some places do candles & angels. Cedar Key does dolphins & clams.


On the way back out of town the next morning, I had Jack pull over so I could show why this town was/is such a properous fishing & shellfish town. Here are some oyster beds. Very cool. My Mom bought clams in Atlanta that came from Cedar Key, FL. It's what they do and trust me, they're very sweet tasting.

SOME OF THE NON-KEEPERS
by Robin

3 ft Reef Shark (sorry..... I took 4 of them and they were all awful)


Unknown Crab


Crab entertaining the troops


"Short" Snapper (under legal size limit of 20"). Probably 13-15".


Another "Short" 19-19.5" range


Juvenile Gag Grouper (look for the blood droplet falling off it) These make great eats when they're bigger.


Happy Fishing! Our local seas have risen back to the 3-6 ft range again.

PICTURES of BLACK FRIDAY!!!
by Robin

Here's the cooler shot......... impressive, huh? There are 11 fish in there.



The line-up of characters (brown one on the left is young Mangrove Snapper)



These are Lane Snappers


These are Red Snapper which have to be over 20" in the Atlantic Ocean to be legally kept. Granted these aren't monsters, but they're definitely keepers!



Here is my big Lane Snapper next to a Kingfish which was kept for smoking and making dip.


Here I am with my 2 American Red Snapper. On the smaller one (I'll let you try to figure that one out-haha), we had a boat passing by us at full speed, 3 men hollering for me to get it up. I needed that adrenalin rush. I caught the bigger one on my last drop with the last squid. It's what I call a "Hail Mary" pass (think football). Sure enough, I made a touchdown! I grunted and groaned. You'd think I was in full-labor with trying to pull that fish off the bottom. My eldest sent the last cigar minnow down on the same pass and put a keeper Lane Snapper in the box.



Then, we set off at 4:30, West, for home. This was day 2 on the ocean and God paints the most amazing sunsets. I love the orange colors towards the sun, setting over Port Canaveral.


But on the other side of the sky, God painted beautiful blues & lavenders. Ack, it's all beautiful.



Then, after the sun disappeared, a glow hit off the puffy clouds to our north. There wasn't a bad section of the sky. It was amazing.


Today, we cleaned the boat & fish. Now, I'm off to fold laundry & get us ready for church tomorrow. God is good, all the time.

Happy Fishing!

BLACK FRIDAY!!!! - bringing home the goods!
by Robin


If you're here to hear about shopping deals, you're thinking wrong. We did back to back trips out (Thurs/Friday). Thursday, we pulled in over 50 short Snapper, no exaggeration. Went home "skunked" and with one child green. (Note to self: never play a Gameboy on a rocking boat) Friday, it took some bribery to get my youngest back out on a boat but it turned out to be more beautiful than Thursday and we tried different locations and different tricks. It all paid off. I've got to go help Jack with boat & fish chores but I'll post up pictures later in the day and throughout the weekend.

Tally:
3 Red Snapper
6 or 7 Lane Snapper
1 Mangrove Snapper
1 Kingfish

Released:
3 sharks
1 remora
50+ small red snapper
1 Kingfish

Cobia are just north of our fishing area so hopefully that will be in our future. I thought I saw a smaller on Thursday but he kept on going and I was already fighting a shark. Friday, I'm pretty certain I saw a Manta Ray jump partially out of the water. We couldn't relocate him once we got the boat turned around.

Happy Fishing!! There are some very happy fishermen in our area this week.

CEDAR KEY
by Robin

It was short & sweet............ and COLD! Don't let the beauty fool you. It was 50 and dropping fast. Fish did not bite so mostly we ate and stayed inside.



We had a day & a half to kill so we ran over to the Gulf coast to eat some seafood and look at beautiful sunsets.



Caught a beautiful picture of the evening glow on this white egret as well.


More pictures to follow in the forthcoming days. Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends & family who ready my blog.

SHUTTLE REPORT
by Robin

Photo above - NASA by Troy Crider

I'm not sure there is just one word I can use to describe how beautiful last night's launch was. It was straight out of a Spielberg movie between a clear sky, perfectly hung full moon in the backdrop and a launch that lit up the sky, brighter than the sun. I don't know if NASA thought about the moon when they planned their launch window or if God did that as a little message of saying "I still create good things".


Photo above - Reuters

Either way, it made for one magical night for the thousands of viewers last night. My heart was bursting with pride for our country and for our brave astronauts who take this risk to serve a greater cause.


Next two photos: NASA & AP

Endeavour mission is to do a makeover on the ISS. They will have a 5 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 kitchen home when it is all over. Oh and please,..... please NASA, make sure you put in a nice plasma flat screen with a Wii or Guitar hero or something!! With all our technology, you think they'd give them something else to do besides catch M-n-M's darting around the room.

Here is the AP article here.

I didn't bother with my own camera because it doesn't do night skies well. I did my best to search for the best that internet had taken and offer them, with credit, here. Enjoy!!!

Photo below by HapsInFL (blogger). This is more like what we saw from the empty lot at the corner of King's Hwy & US 1. Top left would be the shuttle a couple minutes into take-off and heading out over the Atlantic ocean. Moon to the right.

LAST TEST - promise!! It's getting better. This one is for comparison w/ image below.

Testing 3 - clarity & size

Testing - photobucket

TESTING 1 - new size

SUNDAY AFTERNOON
by Robin

We traveled to Kelly Park on Merritt Island, dunked the boat in the water & tied it up.

Jack worked on the trailer. 1) Put on the glyde slicks (in white) and 2) added a safety light across the back. I babysat the kids at the playground and made sure nobody boarded the boat.

A most gorgeous sunset. The moon was already high in the sky. Beautiful!! This was look pretty much straight up but slightly facing south.

This was my view looking west. What's that saying about pink skies, sailor's delight?

An artist couldn't paint a more beautiful sky. These little photos don't do it justice.

We also ran into 2 of Jack's coworkers who were out enjoying the water & watching the Blue Angels do their show over Cape Canaveral. We could see a little bit of the show but nothing compared to what they saw from the water (N. on Banana River).

Oh, the glyde slicks worked WONDERFULLY!!! Totally worth the small investment.

MR. HOLLYWOOD has the Magic Touch!
by Robin


Our waitress at Grills, the waterside restaurant, kept calling our son, Mr. Hollywood cuz he never took his sunglasses off through lunch.

Anyhow, he won the friendly, family competition. He got the first fish, most fish and largest fish. Congrats Little Man.

This is a Jack Crevelle, which is inedible by most standards. Fun fight & pretty yellow fins.

Once again, the cobalt blue Shakespeare Firebird is the hot pole on a cold day, where pretty much, the entire bite was shut down due to the overnight front moving into the area. We couldn't pick up a flounder for nothing around the locks. I couldn't even get a puffer or catfish to bite. Oh well.

We did put 62 gallons of fuel in the boat for next time we go out. Many friends went out on Saturday and loaded up on Red Snapper. Weather was pretty nice for them. Today, the wind was blowing hard & it was nippy early on but warmed up in the afternoon. We still were waiting on our selanoid part to fix the trim tabs. Offshore wasn't an option for us regardless of weather conditions.

More blogging to continue tomorrow. I have stories. We also did trailer work on Sun afternoon that I want to mention. Oh and I have an amazing couple sunset pictures.

Happy Fishing!

GLYDE SLICKS
by Robin

See product here at Bass Pro Shop

Jack went today to pick up some Glyde Slicks, which essentially are strips you adhere to your carpeted trailer bunks. They are designed to help your boat slide right off the trailer and into the water.

Every since we converted our roller trailer to bunks, we've had trouble moving that 6000 pounds of fiberglass. This should do the trick and they're very reasonably priced. Infact, comments left about the product insist they work almost too good. You'd better keep your boat hooked up to the trailer until it is over water. I am looking forward to the change. I have really disliked the transition to bunks. I never thought I'd say this at first, but I did like the roller trailer over time. The horsepower & rollers did all the work for me.

We're hoping that Jack's selanoid shows up in the mail by tomorrow. That way, Sunday afternoon, he can take the boat to the ramp and put on the sticks and then work on the trim tabs quickly before having to head back to evening church.

The PLAN
If all goes well, I'd love to head out fishing on Monday morning. The seas are staying approx 2-3 ft. Fishermen are heading out in droves tomorrow morning. Supposedly, red snapper are stacked up in certain areas. We just need to catch us a few and bag some to hold us through the winter.

And the timing couldn't be more perfect!! Gas was down at $2.16/ gal today. If there is a silver lining in this economic disaster, it is that gas prices have come down.

Pray for us to be able to get all this done and get fishing by Monday!!

NEXT WEEKEND??
by Robin

This blog is practically dead with all the wind blowing for months now. It's been 2 wks ago today that we went to Mosquito Lagoon in our boat.

While we were on that trip, Jack noticed that the Trim Tabs were not working so yesterday, he was able to trouble-shoot that on his day off. Selanoid trouble. Did I spell that right honey?

Anyhow, that part is ordered. The seas are starting to lay down the latter half of the week and into the weekend. If they can just stay down long enough for us to fish on Monday, that would be fabulous. I'll let you know as we get closer to that date.

Happy Fishing!